In electronic circuit technology, it is required in many applications to make electrical connection between circuit elements on one circuit board or other carrier of such elements and circuit elements on another physically separate carrier thereof. In the past, this has commonly been done by utilizing electrical connectors soldered to contact pads or other conductive areas on the one carrier and to leads extending away from such connector, and by other electrical connectors soldered to such leads and to contact pads or the like on the other carrier. Such mode of connection involves an undesirable large number of components and is undesirably expensive and time consuming to effect.
As an alternative, U.S. Pat. No. 4,261,631 issued Apr. 14, 1981 in the name of B. Guilcher discloses electrically connecting directly a plurality of contact pads on a circuit board with registering spring contacts projecting up from an underlying base portion. This is done by a connector comprising the base portion, a pair of uprights fixedly secured to longitudinally opposite ends of the base portion, a hollow vertically movable block disposed above the base portion, and a longitudinal control shaft passing through the block. In FIG. 1, the movable block's transverse cross section is in the form of a "U" lying on its side, the circuit board is inserted into a slot in the free end of the lower arm of the "U", and the opposite ends of the shaft are rotatably received in holes in the two uprights. In FIG. 4, the movable block's transverse cross section is in the form of a hollow rectangle, the circuit board is fixed to the undersurface of the movable block which is slidably movable up and down within a downwardly open fixed block fixedly mounted in relation to the mentioned base portion and uprights, and the opposite ends of the shaft are rotatably mounted in holes in longitudinally opposite ends of the fixed block. For both the FIG. 1 and the FIG. 4 embodiments, the control shaft is of a circular cross section but has longitudinally spaced therealong a plurality of cams in the form of raised segment portions extending about 90.degree. around the shaft.
In operation, the shaft is preliminarily turned to cause one of the cams thereon to contact the upper side of the movable block and, by further turning, to raise it enough to permit the mentioned circuit board to be positioned over the mentioned base portion.
Thereafter, the shaft is turned to a position at which those cams contact the upper surface of the underside of the movable block and displace downwardly both it and the circuit board attached thereto until the contact pads on the board make pressure contact with the spring contacts projecting upward from the base portion.
As distinct from the foregoing, an electrical connector according to the invention in one of its aspects comprises a downwardly open housing adapted to be placed over superposed carriers of registering conductive areas on the carriers' adjacent faces, the housing providing means for coupling it to the lower of such carriers. The connector further comprises means comprising a pressure generating or wedging body of non-circular cross section which is disposed within such housing and is adjustable therein between first and second settings of the body, the housing providing a load-bearing backing above and for the body. At its first setting, the body is adapted, with the housing being coupled to the lower of the superposed carriers, not to produce any significant pressure on those carriers. With, however, the housing being so coupled, the body at its second setting is inserted between such backing and such carriers and is in a simultaneous force coupled relation with both productive of a loading force on such backing and of a downward pressure which is coupled to said carriers so as to result in a pressing together of, and electrical connection between, the registering conductive areas thereon.
A connector according to the invention in other of its aspects may be distinctive because of one or more other features, alone or together, which have not yet been mentioned as, for example but without restriction, that such body is floatingly positionable in the housing, that the housing has parts adapted to cooperate with the superposed carriers to insure accurate alignment thereof in the horizontal plane, etc.